KU rape lawsuit moves to federal court; UDK case appears headed for settlement

Daisy Tackett

The case of Daisy Tackett v. Kansas University — filed by a former KU rower who said a football player raped her at Jayhawker Towers — has been reassigned from Douglas County District Court to federal court.

KU asked for the case to be moved because its allegations fall under the Constitution or laws of the United States, according to the notice of removal KU filed in Douglas County court. “Specifically, plaintiff asserts a cause of action pursuant to Title IX … alleging deliberate indifference to sexual harassment and retaliation,” the document says. (Title IX is the federal law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in education. It’s the law that requires universities to investigate and take measures to prevent sexual harassment, including sexual violence, on their campuses.)

Daisy Tackett

The case is now active in U.S. District Court, District of Kansas (in Kansas City), as of April 25. KU has yet to file a response to the allegations Tackett outlined in the lawsuit.

Tackett’s suit, first filed March 21 in Douglas County (story here), said the football player raped her in Jayhawker Towers in fall 2014, and that KU failed to properly investigate and protect her from retaliation by the player and her rowing coaches. She withdrew from KU early this semester and now lives in Florida, where her parents are.

Two other separate but related lawsuits are still pending in Douglas County court. A fellow rowing team member — named in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe 7 — sued KU April 18, alleging the same football player also raped her in Jayhawker Towers in August 2015 and that KU failed to properly investigate and protect her from intimidation by the man and retaliation by her rowing coach. (Click here for the full story on that case.) Tackett’s parents sued KU March 11 under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, accusing the university of misleading the public by representing campus housing as safe. (Here’s the full story on the parents’ case.)

photo by: Sara Shepherd

James Tackett, left, takes questions from reporters on behalf of his daughter Daisy Tackett at a press conference Monday, March 21, 2016, in Kansas City, Mo. Daisy Tackett, who did not appear at the press conference, said she was raped in fall 2014 at Jayhawker Towers and filed a lawsuit against Kansas University alleging KU violated federal Title IX law by creating a hostile environment on campus. Also pictured is Kansas City attorney Tony LaCroix, who is representing Tackett in a separate but related lawsuit against KU.

Just a few weeks ago, two Kansas State University students who said they were raped at fraternities in Manhattan filed Title IX lawsuits against K-State — both in federal court.

• UDK lawsuit headed for settlement? I’ve also been checking on The University Daily Kansan’s lawsuit against KU. The latest news there is that attorneys representing both sides “have reached a tentative resolution of the case and are working to finalize and fully document their agreement,” according to the most recently filed document in the case, pending in federal court.

Such an agreement should resolve the matter and bring “finality” to the case, the document says. Stay tuned for more when it’s available.

In February the student newspaper, spring 2016 editor in chief Vicky Díaz-Camacho and former editor in chief Katie Kutsko sued KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little and vice provost for student affairs Tammara Durham. The Kansan complained that KU Student Senate cut the newspaper’s student fee funding in half for the 2015-2016 school year — from about $90,000 to about $45,000 — based on its content, which they said violated the student newspaper’s constitutional press freedoms under the First Amendment. The suit names the two administrators because the chancellor or designee must ultimately sign off on student fee usage decisions made by the Senate.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage at KUToday.com. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.